On Mon, 2012-09-24 at 10:37 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> Note that this understanding was produced over a decade ago, during a
> time, as you say, when there were heavy clashes between the two techs.
> That time is long past; CSS clearly and decisively won on the web,
It did (although the XSL WG was never aiming for the Web with XSL-FO).
It might also be worth mentioning that we'd reached consensus on
renaming some of the really unwieldy directional terminology. E.g. block
progression direction and inline progression direction could both lose
the word "progression" without loss of clarity.
> and XSL-FO is being shuttered as a W3C technology, with us absorbing
> Liam for his expertise in printing tech (which XSL-FO was always
> somewhat better at) so we can bring CSS up to rough feature parity.
Yes, I expect to be making a formal announcement next month, but the
XSL-FO work at W3C has basically ended because of low participation. The
technology *is* in widespread use off the Web, e.g. for printed books,
bank statements, driving licences, post-office forms... and it would be
a mistake to say the technology itself is dead. XSL-FO usage is
increasing, in fact, largely driven by a rise in XML publishing
workflows to handle print+ebook+epub+ibook+...
CSS has gained Tony as well as me (and I expect to have more time
available starting in a month or so).
I happen not to like header/footer because they already have other
meanings in the print world, along with head/foot/back/fore. But I'm
more worried about functionality than terminology.
Thanks,
Liam
--
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
Co-author, 5th edition of "Beginning XML", Wrox, Summer 2012